Why do people climb the 7 summits?

Because it is a goal with an end. Most climbers never finish anything: there is always a harder route, a higher peak, a next season. The 7 summits give seven names, a list to tick, and a day when it is done. That structure, more than any single mountain, is why a challenge invented by two businessmen in their fifties has been completed by 816 people from 82 nationalities.

The reasons finishers give

Reading the biographies on this site, the same reasons come up again and again. The list is a reason to travel: seven continents, and on most of them a trek through country you would never otherwise see. It is a reason to train, for people who need a goal to get out of the door. For some it is a second life after a divorce, a diagnosis or retirement; the oldest finishers are in their seventies. For others it is a cause, a charity or a flag: the first finisher from a country, the first woman, the first with a disability. And for a few it is a race, against a clock or a birthday, which is where the records come from.

What it is not

It is not the hardest thing in mountaineering, and finishers rarely claim it is. By their normal routes, five of the seven are walks at altitude, and the two that are not, Everest and Carstensz Pyramid, are climbed with guides and fixed ropes. Serious alpinists sometimes dismiss the list for that reason. What they miss is that the list was never meant for them: Dick Bass set out to prove that a fit amateur with willpower could stand on the roof of every continent, and that is still the point.

The cost of the answer

Finishing takes most people five to ten years and well over US$100,000, so the honest reason has to be strong enough to survive that. What do the 7 summits cost? has the figures, How do I get money or sponsorship? the uncomfortable answer about sponsors, and the statistics page how long a round really takes. If you want to know what motivated a particular finisher, their page in the finisher lists usually says, in their own words.